


Clarity

by jay (MoastedRarshmallow)



Category: BoJack Horseman
Genre: Angst, Child Abuse, Dementia, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Lobotomy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-22 03:26:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15572706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoastedRarshmallow/pseuds/jay
Summary: Beatrice Horseman can't remember much. What she can is never pleasant.





	Clarity

**Author's Note:**

> such a tragic character. in no way good, but a big victim of circumstance. i like to think age has softened her and opened her eyes to everything she's done  
> tldr this bojack rewatch im doing is kicking my ass ;,,,,( good fuckin show man
> 
> let me know what you think and enjoy!!

The glimpses of lucidity don’t come often; the holes in her gauzy brain don’t break through much in her old age. Even a few years ago, she could go on for weeks, cleaning and smoking – making the day nurse sneeze and leave her alone for a while – while remembering who and where she was.

 Her legs held her up better then, too. She wasn’t cold all the time.

 Now, they hit her in an instant, and are gone just as fast, leaving her blinking down at the baby doll in her arms, convinced it’s cooing for her attention.

 She was a bad mother, that’s what she remembers the most. When a stripe of clarity bursts through and she’s clutching at the arms of the wheelchair – that stupid fucking chair, she can’t stand it – thrown back violently through her memories, that’s what she remembers.

 BoJack: her only son, her only child. She never supported him, not even when he made it. At the time, it was all just contrived and silly to her, the show he did. She never even gave it a fair shot.

 He was never enough, because _she_ was never enough; she used him as an outlet, just as her father did her. A punching bag with a mirror pinned to it.

  She remembers blowing smoke in his face on the days Butterscotch crowed and threw things, because misery loves company. Making him dance into the wee hours of the night, all under the pretense of embarrassment. Blaming him for her shortcomings. Calling the things he loved stupid, because everything she loved turned to ash – her money, her marriage, her beloved baby doll. Her mother, who was stripped of her personality because it didn’t agree with her father’s whims.

 Over and over, in a rapid cycle. Parent abuses child, child becomes parent, parent abuses child – rinse, wash, repeat. It’s a good thing BoJack struck out in love, maybe it didn’t have to continue. You can’t love a child while you hate yourself, she thinks, and remorse drapes over her, clinging to her skin like a cold sweat.

 She is so, so sorry. She’s struck with fear, suddenly, that she will die without telling him. BoJack will never know that it wasn’t his fault. That he’ll be convinced, for the rest of his life, that he’s broken in the way she is. The way she told him he was.

 The fear rushes into her eyes before she can stop it, not that she can stop much these days. Her eyes bug out of her head, and the nurse-bear, Tina, places a warm paw on her shoulder.

 She doesn’t talk much, that Tina, but the concern in her eyes is clear. She says something to the nice young girl, the one that could stand to lose ten pounds, and palms a pill into Beatrice’s hand. The young girl returns with water, and Beatrice takes her pill – though she can’t understand what they’re so worried about. She feels fine.

 She shrugs them off, returning to the show on the picture box, hiking her baby higher up on her elbow. She likes this show. Something about that horse is vaguely familiar.  


End file.
